Towcester 10% Tote returns prove there is value to be had in this year's Derby

Towcester 10% Tote returns prove there is value to be had in this year's Derby

In the run up to last Sunday’s card at Towcester which featured the Time Greyhound Nutrition Juvenile and the final of the BetGoodwin and J R Maiden Derby, you may well have seen various articles across our site promoting the new 10% Tote retentions on the win pool, and 15% retentions of the other pools, such as the Forecast’s and Trio’s, and they were heavily endorsed by Harry Findlay.

"Come and see what a 10% Tote is like"

Speaking on a Gone To The Dogs Podcast, he joined presenters Dani Jackson and Joe Conneely, and amongst other things said “All the punters that Greyhound Racing have lost over the years would come back with this Tote. Listen, turn up to Towcester on 20th April, punters, just to get a feeling of what it’s going to be like throughout the Derby. Come and see what a 10% Tote is like, you’re going to experience something that you haven’t done for 60 years”. To listen to that podcast, click here

That’s quite a statement but you’d expect nothing less from someone with Findlay's background in the betting industry.

As soon as the field was announced for the Juvenile contest, I made the decision that I would take the 1 hour 45 minute journey through the Dartford Tunnel and up the M1 to Towcester, but as there was a Q and A session prior to racing with Findlay, joined by Gary Wiltshire and hosted by Gone To The Dogs' own Jonathan Hobbs, I made sure I was there nice and early, as did a healthy crowd of over 100 or so who sat or stood in the marque.

Having spoken to Hobbsy about a few stories from the old days, the subject of the 10% Tote was brought up. Almost immediately, Findlay's mood had changed. From the laughing storytelling mode he had only minutes before shown, there was a more serious feel to the tone of his voice, a passion that became more and obvious the more he spoke.

"Raise your hand if you've recently bet on the Tote"

At one point, Findlay asked the room for anyone to raise their hand who had recently placed a bet of various values on the Tote, and only one person raised their hand. He made the point, a very valid one, that greyhound punters go to a track and are taught not to bet on the Tote.

I know this to be true on a personal level. When I first started going to Catford in the mid to late 90s, my Dad would always say to me that you only need to bet on the Tote if you wanted to do a Forecast or a Trio. Any win bets, you’re better off with a bookie, and I dare say that is the thought of most punters still to this day.

Findlay continued, saying that punters won’t back on the Tote because of the high retentions, there’s no value left once the promoters have taken their 30-35% out of the pool, and again, it’s a valid point. Whilst working at Crayford, we used to input the Tote returns on the bottom of the result sheet for the main meetings, and yes you would get the odd anomaly where a runner with an SP of 3/1 paid £35 on the Tote, but more often than not, the returns were nothing to write home about.

Which is why the 10% Tote is something that could make this year's Derby the best yet for punters, whether you’re a £1 win person, or a £200 win person, the value is there to be seen from the returns on Sunday.

Now, I can’t turn round and say that I placed any bets on the Tote on Sunday, because I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to or felt that the value wouldn’t be there, but being a nice sunny day, I was stood on the steps opposite the bookies and caught up with a few friends who I hadn’t spoken to in a while.  Being stood close to the bookies, there were the usual bets being struck, the £10’s, £20’s, £50’s, or in the case of Ryan Conneely’s successful trips to the ring in his Barking Mad Betting YouTube role, much more, but it got me thinking, what would it take for punters to put these bets on the Tote.

Liquidity concerns

The main concern I believe is the liquidity. If you are placing a couple of quid here and there whilst sat in the restaurant having a meal or sat at a table in the bar with a member of staff coming round to take your bets, then that wouldn’t be an issue, and again it may not be an issue for the £10-£20 punters. If you can see 2/1 on the betting boards and knowing you can get 4/1 on the Tote, you will be more inclined to have your bet on the Tote.

But it’s the bigger punters that probably (rightly so) have more reason to be concerned about the liquidity. If the pool is low, regardless of if it’s 10% or 30% punters will know that if they had a bet on a greyhound that is showing up as Evs on the boards, but is 2/1 on the Tote, they know that their £100 Tote bet could see the price go to 1/5.

Everyone knows that punters want the best price they can get for their bet, which is why they will study a card a day or two before the race, form their own prices, and then set about the betting sites when the early prices go up to get their money on, which can often be a battle in itself.

Bet on the Tote at home

But the 10% Tote isn’t designed to stop that, and if anything, it could make things better for the punter if the liquidity is there, and during the Derby, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be. The facility to be able to bet on the Tote from the comfort of the sofa, watching the action on one of the Gone To The Dogs Live shows will be brought to the punter for the Derby and you can easily see a scenario where people will be on their phones or laptops, however you bet, and comparing the markets of your online bookmaker and the Tote.

This could work on course as well. I mean, the days of huge Tote display boards such as at Catford between the 3rd and 4th bend, have long gone, but a couple of tv monitors in and around the betting ring giving the punter the choice of where to put their money, at least giving them the chance to see the comparable odds between Tote and bookie would be of huge benefit.

You may also get a scenario where some of the bookies on track, or even online use the Tote to hedge a few bets. If for example, punters have taken the view of a Greyhound priced at 12/1 in the morning is too big and have backed it accordingly into say 5/1, there is every possibility that, with the liquidity, the bookies may be able to back some of that back again if that runner doesn’t prove popular on the Tote. The 12/1 they laid in the morning, could be available again on the Tote, and if they decided to do so and hedge, that would only increase the pool and provide more of a return for other punters who have backed other greyhounds in the race.

Or you could get a scenario in one of the early rounds where Proper Heiress lines up against Bockos Diamond again. Bookies may go 5/2 Heiress, Evs Diamond. But on the Tote, you may find one runner is supported over the other, which then pushes out the price of the rival. You could again have a situation where Heiress on Tote is 4/1, or Bockos Diamond may suddenly go odds against depending on the views. But being the Derby, a head to head clash with any runner in any round could create huge interest on the track.

Figures don't lie

The figures above don’t lie. Only three of the eleven races at Towcester on Sunday saw the betting industry SP return bigger than the win dividend on the Tote, and in the case of the first winner Gun Slinger and the seventh winner Yorkie Oliie, we are talking a difference of a few pence. The only real difference was in the fifth race where Rackethall Brute returned an SP of 9/2, which paid just over 5/2 on the Tote.

Yes, the same could be said about the Tote returns between races two to four, that the return was only slightly more than the SP. But look at the last four races. Proper Heiress at 13/2 Tote compared to 100/30 SP.  Sehnsa Mac just over 7/1 on the Tote compared to 7/2 SP. Hello Diego just under 7/1 on the Tote compared to 11/4 SP, and Broadway Murty 5/2 on the Tote compared to Evs SP.

There’s no reason why those sort of returns can’t occur throughout the Derby, and the pools, especially for the later rounds where the crowds, interest and expectations are higher, could prove to be huge.

In an ever changing world and indeed greyhound industry, can this work? Will this work? Well if Harry Findlay and Mike Davis have their way, then the answer is an unquestionable yes.